Evidence of meeting #13 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was board.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Chairperson, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
Well, non-members if they don't charge a fee--
NDP
Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON
Oh, so if I volunteer to, and charge a fee later, I could still do that.
Chairperson, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
No, you couldn't. You're not allowed to charge a fee.
Chairperson, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
If you charge a fee, you have to be registered. That's number one.
It's not necessary to have a lawyer at the interview. What we intend to do, and of course this will have to be in the development of the rules, is provide the claimant with a disc of the actual interview, so that when he or she obtains a lawyer or counsel--if they do, because many choose to be self-represented--then that counsel would have the benefit of hearing exactly what happened at the interview, as opposed to an officer's notes of what happened. We doubt that many of the claimants will have legal counsel for the eight-day interview, for the reasons that you suggest.
NDP
Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON
For the first one, yes. You need it for the second one. Eight days is too soon....
Chairperson, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
It's too soon. But once again, it's not an adversarial process. It's a process for obtaining information--
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Tilson
Ms. Chow, this is important, but our time has expired.
Maybe you could be quick.
NDP
Olivia Chow NDP Trinity—Spadina, ON
I'm glad you acknowledge that this is important. Someone else will pick it up.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Tilson
They're very important, these questions you're asking.
I'm going to move to perhaps another round.
Mr. Calandra.
Conservative
Paul Calandra Conservative Oak Ridges—Markham, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you for coming.
I want to make sure I understand something. The Public Service Commission has a set of rules and regulations in place with respect to staffing and that's delegated to you. Mr. Coakeley assists you, but you must follow the rules when you're hiring. It's been delegated to you, but you still work within the framework as set out by the Public Service Commission.
Chairperson, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
There's a letter of delegation that is co-signed by me and the chair of the Public Service Commission. When I became chairperson, I received a visit from Ms. Barrados, president of the commission. We subsequently signed a letter in which she delegated the staffing authority to me. Then I sub-delegate that. She expects that to happen. That's the way it works now. The hiring is done by hiring managers, staffing managers. They're trained to be able to do that in accordance with the act before they get the delegation.
Conservative
Paul Calandra Conservative Oak Ridges—Markham, ON
It might be too soon to ask this, but I wonder if you've given any thought to how you will hire the public servant decision-makers. Have you given any thought as to how you're going to be doing that?
Chairperson, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
We've started to give thought to doing it. The fact is that we're a long way from there. First of all, we have to draft a job description. Then we have to have it classified. There's a whole process within the public service for doing these things.
Then we have to decide on what the area of the competition will be. Our current thinking is that we would not restrict the staffing activity, as I mentioned, to persons within the public service or even persons within the board. We would open it up to the public at large. Remember: it's anticipated we will need 100 public servant decision-makers at the first level. It remains to be seen how many positions will be available for each of those categories.
Conservative
Paul Calandra Conservative Oak Ridges—Markham, ON
With respect to training, how are you going to ensure, and how do you ensure, that the people who are hired in the new refugee protection division, the protection-makers, are competent, that they can do the job they're expected to do and keep the best interests of the people--the board, the government, and the people seeking asylum--top of mind?
Chairperson, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
Well, it's absolutely critical that this happen: that we select the right people and train them so they're able to discharge their functions competently and in accordance with a code of conduct we have for all our members. That includes our immigration division members.
It starts with selecting the right people. We've talked about that. My view is that we ought to have a mix. It shouldn't be restricted to people at the board or people in the public service, because my experience is that people from outside the public service bring a lot to the board, both when they come as public servants and when they come as GIC appointees.
Honestly, our training at the GIC level is second to none. As I mentioned, I was responsible for agency reform, that is, adjudicated tribunal reform across the Ontario government for the Attorney General. I'm familiar with the training systems of smaller tribunals. We're very fortunate that we're a larger tribunal. We're renowned for our training. If you ask any of our members or former members--and I invite you to do so--they will tell you about the quality of the training.
We will offer the same kind of training to our decision-makers, whether they're public servant decision-makers or GIC decision-makers in RAD. It's fantastic training, it really is. It includes mentoring. No one is permitted to sit as a sole decision-maker given the importance of the decisions they make until we determine that they're ready to do so, and of course, until they believe they're ready to do so.
There will then be monitoring to ensure they're carrying out their responsibilities effectively and in accordance with the law. We do that currently for the GIC decision-makers and for the public servant decision-makers in the ID. That includes sitting in on hearings, reviewing tapes or discs of hearings, and reviewing reasons. That's done as part of our performance evaluation system.
Once again, we have annual performance evaluations for both public servants and for GIC decision-makers. Of course, we have an end-of-mandate performance evaluation for all GIC appointees that is sent to the minister at least six months in advance of the expiry of a member's term. On that basis, I make a recommendation to the minister as to whether or not someone should be reappointed.
Public servant decision-makers are generally indeterminate appointments, so they're not appointed for a term. If they're not performing according to expectations, we'll find out why. We'll see what we need to do to help them and, if they're not measuring up, then they won't sit on claims. It's as simple as that. It's too important.
Conservative
Conservative
Paul Calandra Conservative Oak Ridges—Markham, ON
Thirty seconds? I won't ask another question. Thank you.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Tilson
Thank you very much. That concludes the first round.
Mr. Bevilacqua.
Liberal
Maurizio Bevilacqua Liberal Vaughan, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Goodman, you said you were consulted by the government before the government introduced Bill C-11. I was wondering if you could share with us not all the points you've raised, but your top three top-of-mind points you made to the government, because in the final analysis you were a very important part of the architecture of this system.
Chairperson, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
As you can appreciate, I can't really give you the advice I gave to government because I'm not permitted to do that. What I can tell you is what we were consulted about. We were consulted on the impact on the IRB, what the cost would be of doing this, and generally how we would do it.
For example, is it doable? Can you do this? What amount of time are you going to need to prepare for this? So, for example, that consultation went into the coming into force date, which is no later than two years from royal assent. As the minister and staff indicated at your hearing on Tuesday, an incredible amount of work needs to be done. We're establishing two entirely new divisions within the IRB.
Liberal
Maurizio Bevilacqua Liberal Vaughan, ON
Yes. You can understand why, as a member of this committee studying this bill, which will in fact either approve or not approve this bill...you play such an important role to this committee that it would be important for us to know the type of input you gave. Quite frankly, as a member of Parliament I have the right to ask what the chair of the Immigration and Refugee Board thinks of the bill, because we're here to study this bill. For us not to be able tot access that type of information concerns me.
But having said that, let me perhaps rephrase it so you can answer it. Having read Bill C-11, what do you think the major challenges will be for your organization in implementation of this? That's a fair question, right?